[General] Engineering applications. Theory of light and matter.

[John Williamson]

Dear everyone,

I want to get away from the airy-fairy theory stuff and get down to a discussion of nuts and bolts. I come from an engineering school after all. Chandra is right: if we really want to get proper attention, funding and development we need to begin to think about developing engineering applications.

Firstly: what does a theory do? What is the point of the merely theoretical?

A theory allows one to think things that otherwise cannot be thought. It provides a framework and a language for those thoughts. In so far as it parallels reality, it allows the development and design of new kinds of things that are not naturally found in the environment. Technologies.

If this is so, then why is it that certain elements of our current theories have not had much, if any, impact on technological developments? For the current state of affairs xkcd  pretty much summed the current state of affairs up a couple of weeks ago. (thanks to John Weaver for bringing this to my attention – very funny, but horribly close to the truth).

http://www.xkcd.org/1489/

While the actual situation is not just quite this bad (there is an analytic expression for the weak interaction, for example) – it is, for all practical purposed (FAPP), horribly true. The strong interaction theory, in particular, is just not useful in any energy range of interest. The language analogy would be that these theories have no words at the chemical and ordinary physical scale. No words for anything outside of a nuclear explosion (weak) or big bang (strong). Since we do not usually want to engineer nuclear explosions or big bangs these theories, even if correct, are of little practical use in thinking about or the development of technology. Such theories, far from being a help, can, indeed, be a hindrance to thinking. One well known one is the popular view of uncertainty in quantum mechanics. Again well summed up below :

http://www.xkcd.org/1473/

Cannot know? Says who?

There are practical theories which do help: Newton’s laws, Einstien’s relativity, Schroedinger’s quantum (wave) mechanics, the marvelous Maxwell equations and Feynmann’s quantum electrodynamics have all helped drive technology to the incalculable benefit of us all. If we have all those, why do we need a new one?

Quite apart from the fact that it would be nice to have a single theory encompassing all of the above, the answer lies in part in the theory missing from the list above. Relativistic quantum mechanics. Dirac theory. This theory is simple, linear and beautiful. Why has it not had more impact on technology? I think the answer is that it is still just a bit too simple. It does matter. It does half-integral spin (wonderfully). It does not, however, do charge properly. It does not do light. At least it does not do light right.

What if we had a theory which fixed this? One which remained linear, like the Dirac and Maxwell equations, explained the quantisation of light (unlike the Maxwell equations), and had analytic solutions for light, matter and mixed states of light and matter. What kinds of things could we think with it which otherwise could not be thought?

That is what this note is about. It will probably be quite long as there is so much to do, but it will cover only a fraction of the possible. Also, though there are nanotechnological implications in devices, out of respect for my colleagues in the nanotech department I am in I shall steer away from these here, but discuss such things with them first. Tim Drysdale is leaving for pastures new – so stuff on the modeling of electromagnetism is fair game. Nanotech in materials  (which was once a great strength here) has been discontinued at Glasgow – so this is ok too.

For the purposes of this note it will be assumed that my own new theory of light and matter is valid. It is the language I’m using to think this stuff after all, and I cannot use another language I do not yet speak. In reality, even if this theory is on the right track is not likely to be whole story, at least in detail, as there are other possibilities (such as the choice of fundamentally left-handed co-ordinate system) which introduce sign changes. No matter. This note will explore some of the possible applications making the presumption that my theory is correct as it stands. If so –what might one expect it to be able to do? The argument would be similar for any other, linear, relativistic theory of light and matter we may be able to come up with.

This reads a bit like the Williamson program for the next couple of decades, provided, of course, that I can duplicate myself in dozens – but there you go. I hope to inspire some of you to take some of these things up-as I just do not have the time. What is really needed is a good slab of funding so we can get dozens of young bright minds educated and get, properly, to work … Any ideas on how to implement that would be especially welcome.

Some of the stuff discussed below is already trying to happen – but in a halting kind of way. Pavel Osmera  (I am on the proposal, but Pavel did most of the work) put in an application for a few million Euros to develop some of the physical-chemistry of this within the Horizon2020 framework. He will probably want to say more about this. Unfortunately, we have just heard that it has not been funded. Europe has anyway slashed spending on this kind of research to help support our needy bankers. I had put in for money for a postdoc, in the hope of hiring someone like Mayank or Adam K – (sorry guys!) I also put in another grant application (for just 50k!) to buy myself out of my teaching for a year to pursue some of this research. That has not been funded either. Looks like more teaching of stuff most of you would consider high-school level maths  to 400 students at a time. Ho-hum!

Coming back to my stuff. This is a new linear theory, treating both light and matter on an equal footing and within the same theoretical framework. This is unprecedented. The competitor theories have not proven to be calculable. Dirac proves famously difficult, even for such simple things as the hydrogen atom. The practical theory we have used in the solid state has therefore been, pretty much exclusively, the non-relativistic Schroedinger equation. No chance of getting light in properly here then. Even if it did allow me to imagine and develop such things as the quantum point contact (worlds first nano electronic device, I believe) in the past.

A reading of so called “theoretical” explanations of anything in the collective domain in the solid state (plasmons, fractional quantum hall, superconductivity etc) reveals the futility of trying to understand any of these properly in these terms. The idea that these states are bound electromagnetic vortices is basically good – but the nuts and bolts misses the point as it goes in on mere energetics. It is always explanation after the fact and not  pointers to the way to go. It is poor explanation at that.This stuff has been my field for decades and I knew it inside-out up till two decades ago and still keep up with developments. Do not bother. Start over. Take the scientific method seriously! Theory not working? Throw it out and make a new one!

The present theory for the superconductor, for example, reveals that such things as high temperature superconductivity are simply not possible at all. Not good.  They are! The “Cooper pair” conjecture breaks down when confronted with experiment – not only because of the huge energy gulf, but also because of experimental contradictions such as the Tate anomaly. This makes the development of new materials (and we are sooo close to room temperature now) on a theoretical basis, pretty much a waste of time. The only real way forwards so far has been guesswork by talented experimentalists and pure blind chance.

The new theory may be expected to change this completely once we start to calculate stuff with it. Consider, for example, the Tate anomaly. In this (excellent) experiment Tate et. al measured the Cooper pair mass experimentally. Beautiful. With a resolution to see the expected (very small) binding energy in Niobium, In the event the theory was almost an order of magnitude wrong. Worse: it was in the WRONG direction. The di-electron spin zero pair was not energetically bound, but energetically unbound. In a world where Quantum field theory deals exclusively with energy in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian interpretations one is just completely lost. Mouth full of teeth. Nothing to say. Only my granddad would not have been lost for words. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (he would have said). It is blindingly obvious that one needs a completely new theoretical approach (would say his grandson). This is an area where a new linear theory could, should and would, have an enormous impact. There is no Cooper pair. There is something else. In my view it is a resonant – harmonic di-electro-Boson state. Its is a state as distinct from two electrons as a neutron is different from an electron and a proton. It is the same di-elecro-boson as in the inner shell of the Helium atom. Its stability is not merely in energy, but in the proper understanding of he matched inner topology of the electrons, photons and the whole crystal environment which, in some sense, compose it. To have any chance of understanding this sort of thing at all one needs a theory which encompasses the electrons, the neutrons and protons AND the beautiful electro-matter-magnetic resonant periodic matrix in which they find themselves. All of it, all at once, within the same theory (and not in half-a-dozen each giving a glimpse of a bit of the problem).

Back to that new theory. The first stage is the development of solutions of the elementary particle states on the basis of the new theory.  The present status is that these exist for the photon (linear) and electron (toroidal) in the theory, and that there is a model view of the hadrons as being, essentially, trefoil knots. The di-electro-boson above was discussed for the first time at MENDEL 2012, in the context of the exclusion principle. This whole idea needs development – probably in the numerical modeling of  electromagnetic momentum flows within the new theory. This will be a lot of work but has huge potential.

The development here will be highly non-trivial. Tim is an expert in this for standard Maxwell electromagnetism and he and I have had many discussions in the past about the possibility of doing something here. It is hard guys. Standard e-m is hard but this is much worse. Things go round and round in circles. Just developing an appropriate grid is going to be interesting. There may be (and are – in part) analytic solutions to compare modeling with the simplest cases such as the electron itself. Tim has come up with a suggestion that there IS space in the standard development of electromagnetism to insert a scalar and pseudoscaler terms – but we have both been too snowed under with teaching and admin to make much progress here. Chip has volunteered his services. Given the quality of his interaction here I am more than tempted to take him up on this. Can you come to Scotland? Do you Skype? It would be good to get Tim and Mayank in on this too. Any other takers? This will be really tough – but it is linear, calculable in principle and capable of very big rewards. This is in marked contrast to the competition, the standard model and  various string theories, where nothing useful in practice can be calculated at all. Even in principle. This may be convenient (in that such theories are not easily knocked over by experiment), but is less useful if one wishes to actually make any useful progress.

Coming back to photon and electron. With the photon there are many possible experiments (to be discussed in August). One of the main engineering benefits will come from a better understanding from combined electron-photon states of matter. Apart from the fact that all atoms themselves are, effectively, such states in the new theory, think about such collective states of light and matter in the solid state. The Plasmon, polariton polaron, magnon … pretty-much-anythingon.  One arrives here at such things as the Luttinger liquid and the fractional Quantum Hall effect. Giant magnetoresistance and qubits. Distributed computing and zero-energy distributed multistate logic. 21st century electronics.   There are enormous numbers of experiments, demonstrators and devices to be developed here. One of my favourite themes (and another area with huge potential applications) is to do sub-electron electronics. Any of you out there can do milliKelvin low noise measurements? May be fun to collaborate. I think it should be possible to put many many bits of information onto a SINGLE electron. You heard it here first.

Next theme: electro-protons. There are two states of interest. The Hydrogen atom and the neutron. Both, in the new theory, may be described as pure-field (plus pivot) states. These become, in the new theory, not strictly bound states of the electron and proton, but quite new collective states of the underlying electro-pivot- quadrivector-magnetic even set (field+), or, equivalently of the vector potential- angular momentum set (current+spin). Both sets are equivalent, in that the constitutive equations of the new theory constrain each in terms of the other in a set of coupled, linear differential equations. Clearly, the hydrogen atom and neutron differ in the scale and nature of the cancellation of the internal constitutive fields.  In the hydrogen atom it is just the external e-m field. Solving the hydrogen atom is the obvious next next step in the theory. Should not be too hard as we already have most of the maths in place.

In the neutron and proton it a partial cancellation of the internal constitutive fields themselves – the cancelled topology being carried by the neutrino, of course. The internal fields are far stronger, as they contain magnetic (stronger) as well as merely electric (weaker intrinsically) components. This is why the electron has electric and not the dual magnetic, charge. Magnetic satisfies itself and cancels maximally, leaving poor, weak electric to hedgehog out radially.  This is the reason, in the new theory, that the charged proton has lower mass than the neutral neutron: there is more internal cancellation for the proton (hence its lower mass). It is this resonant harmonic, field interference that is, in my view, responsible for both the strong interaction and the Pauli exclusion principle. I talked about this a bit at MENDEL 2012 and there is a short paper on one aspect of this in the proceedings.

The solution of the Hydrogen atom will be interesting, but that of the Helium atom in some senses more so. This is not only a tri-Boson in spin (electron-Boson, Proton-Boson and Neutron-Boson), but also has Bosonic properties in isospin.  An IsoBoson then ( I think I just made that term up (but you never know!).  All these combine to make Helium just as inert and just as low energy (for fusion) as it is. Coming to fusion – the theory should have impact here too. Understanding the inner workings of the hadrons themselves could be expected to help in engineering systems to make them fuse. Andrew and others here know much more about this than I – but I cannot wait to talk to you guys properly about it. This has, obviously, immense potential application in clean energy generation and supply. Are any of the big energy companies beating down your door to give you funding Andrew?

Sorry guys … I could go on and on, but I still have one exam to produce, if I can, before Martin gets here tomorrow – so better get going to work soon.

Here is a quick list of things that spring to mind in potential engineering applications and developments that a new theory of light and matter may be expected to help in …

New (meta)materials: room temperature supercomputers, perfect conductors (different – no Meissner effect), distributed (robust) quantum states, sub-electron electronics – heat removal (big problem in nanoelectronics), trans-device communication, multistate (not binary) elements.

Energy: new energy sources, energy storage, energy delivery, energy harvesting (on earth and in space).

Propulsion: better understanding of nature of gravitation, space and time for space propulsion.

Fusion. New understanding and control of nuclear processes. Practical CNF.

Water: fresh water production – resonant impurity removal devices.

Light: new kinds of light sources. Effective 6000K nano-incandescents.

Human tech interfaces (there is a word for this but ive forgotten it): investigate resonant – harmonic effect of such things as sense of smell (Martin and I had an idea about this years ago – and he even allowed himself to be a test subject for a rather scary experiment) – we have not developed this further.

Transducers: unprecedented sensitivity due to understanding of long-range quantum phase control.

Information storage (memory): needs to be (quantum) distributed to be thermally robust. Develop resonant, harmonic materials to store combinatorially large amounts of data.

That’s it for now: you’ll all be able to think of lots of other things to add to the list… better get up and get ready or I’ll run into traffic …

Tootle-pip,

-J.
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